Harvey Weinstein Fire Sale Beginning...

by Rachelle Hruska · August 14, 2009

It has been a rough year for the Weinstein Company as they near bankruptcy. They recently hired a bankruptcy consultant and are hanging their hopes of financial rescue on the release of the movie Inglorious Basterds later this month. So how bad are things for Harvey? According to a tipster, he is reportedly trying to unload his controlling stake in the jet set social network a small world for somewhere around half of what he paid for it.

Weinstein has been shopping around his stake in a small world. He needs liquidity fast, willing to take a heavy discount (as in 50% or more), the sharks should be circling soon...

Earlier this year we saw media mogul Barry diller skilfully drop an egg on Jared Kushner when he unloaded averyshortlist on the Observer owner and Ivanka Trump husband-to-be. Then again, Kushner provided a willing subject, gleefully allowing DIller to pull the wool over his eyes. It will be interesting to see if Weinstein can pull off a similar feat. The situations, however, are perhaps less analogous on deeper inspection. Harvey's mogul days are far behind him (Diller's are not), ASW isn't exactly hurting, and Weinstein's sale is motivated by his financial woes rather than scrapping a project that never really materialized.